Essenzialmente Laura
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Galbanum dominates immediately, its bitter green resin slicing through citrus with almost brutal efficiency—this is latex sap and crushed stems rather than gentle foliage. Tarragon adds an anisic, slightly medicinal edge that makes the whole opening feel bracing, astringent, like snapping fresh herbs between your fingers in a morning garden still wet with dew.
As the green subsides, a magnificent floral bouquet unfolds with carnation's spicy clove leading the charge, its peppery warmth drawing out orange blossom's sweeter facets whilst tuberose lounges indolently beneath. Beeswax acts as both glue and glow, its waxy sweetness binding the white florals together whilst jasmine and ylang ylang add their oily, narcotic depths—this is a corsage pinned to warm skin, pollen-dusted and slightly melting.
The classic chypre skeleton emerges triumphant: oakmoss bitter and forest-floor damp, civet providing that skin-close animalic purr, iris adding powdery earthiness like orris root crushed to dust. Sandalwood and tonka create a warm, barely-sweet base that lets the moss and musk do their ancient dance, whilst cedarwood keeps everything dry, dignified, and utterly uncompromising.
Campo Marzio 35 is a formidable floral chypre that speaks fluent Belle Époque, its 1911 bones still remarkably articulate beneath Robert Bienaimé's masterful construction. The opening assault of galbanum cuts through bergamot and tarragon like a green blade through butter, that resinous bitterness tempered only slightly by lemon's brightness. This is no timid garden stroll—it's a corseted promenade through Rome's marshy field, the ancient Campo Marzio itself, where flowers grow wild amongst stone ruins. The heart explodes into an almost baroque floral arrangement: carnation's clove-laced spice tangles with orange blossom's indolic warmth whilst tuberose adds its creamy narcosis. Beeswax weaves through the white flowers like golden thread, giving them structure and a subtle animalic hum that prefigures what's to come. Ylang ylang and jasmine add their heady oils, but it's the violet and lily of the valley that provide necessary powder and green counterpoint. Then the base reveals its true chypre nature—oakmoss and civet create that immortal bitter-animalic foundation, whilst iris adds a rooty, almost carroty earthiness. Sandalwood and tonka provide warmth without sweetness, and cedarwood's pencil shavings keep things dry. This isn't for the faint-hearted or those seeking easy compliments. It's for those who understand that beauty can be sharp-edged, that flowers can smell of earth and skin, and that history worn well never goes out of style.
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